Short — for a message
Hi [Name], Congratulations on the new job! I am really happy for you.
Fast beats polished. A same-day congratulations is worth more than a well-crafted one three weeks later.
Congratulations Message Generator
“Congratulations” congratulates the event. “I know what you put into this” congratulates the person. Three drafts built on the second one.
Takes ~60 seconds No data stored Free, no signup
Congratulations that do not read as obligation
Three drafts — short for right now, personal with the work behind it, and a version for a card.
The square brackets are deliberate: the specific detail about this person is exactly what separates a congratulations from a formality.
Personal — names the work behind it
Hi [Name], Congratulations on the new job! I know how long you were at this, and how grinding the stretch with [specifically: what you watched them go through] was. All the better that it landed. So pleased for you. [Your name]
The difference is naming the work, not just the outcome. "Congratulations" congratulates the event; "I know what you put into this" congratulates the person.
Card
Hi [Name], Congratulations on the new job! I know how long you were at this, and how grinding the stretch with [specifically: what you watched them go through] was. All the better that it landed. Let us celebrate this properly soon. On me. So pleased for you. [Your name]
What is deliberately absent: any comparison to yourself. "So jealous!" and "when is it my turn?" pull the moment back towards the sender.
Everything is generated in your browser. Nothing is stored or sent.
The second congratulations is worth more
Everyone messages on the day. Almost nobody comes back four weeks later to ask how the first month actually went — which is why that is the one people remember. Endearist reminds you, locally on your device.
Join the waitlist →48 congratulations messages to copy — graduation, retirement, new job
Congratulations rarely fail on warmth. They fail on being interchangeable — “congratulations on your graduation” is already on the other twenty cards, and it gets read as the twenty-first. So each of these keeps one gap open for the part nobody else can supply: the years it took, the attempt before this one that did not work, the thing that changes tomorrow. Three things first. You will not find a rhyme or a borrowed line here — the graduation card is where that temptation is strongest, and a quotation is always recognisably somebody else's. The retirement section carries a warning of its own: plenty of people stop working at a moment they would not have chosen, and two of the messages there are written for that. Anything in square brackets is yours to fill: [Name] is the person, [subject] what they studied, [number] the years or the rounds, [detail] whatever actually stands behind the news.
The square brackets are deliberate: you fill in [Name] and [Detail] yourself. That one filled-in part is the whole difference between a message and a mail-merge.
What to write in a graduation card
The graduation card is where people reach for a quotation, and a borrowed line is exactly what it looks like on the page. One sentence about something you watched happen over the last few years outweighs any amount of inspirational wisdom. The second thing most cards get wrong is the closing question. “So what's next?” has been asked forty times that week and often cannot be answered yet. Congratulate the thing that finished, and leave the next thing alone.
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Congratulations on the [subject] degree, [Name]. [Number] years, and I saw enough of every one of them to know what it cost you.
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This was not the first attempt, which is precisely why the certificate says more than what is printed on it. Congratulations.
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Congratulations on finishing. What stuck with me is not the grade — it is the winter you kept going through anyway.
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You passed. I know how close it felt in the middle of it, and I know who did the work. Congratulations.
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Congratulations on completing your degree. I followed the last few terms closely enough to know how little of that work was ever visible from outside.
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Congratulations on qualifying. You have spent [number] years learning something that cannot be looked up, and that is worth more than anyone is telling you today.
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For the last few years you have been at that kitchen table more than anywhere else. As of today that is over, and I am extremely proud of you. Congratulations.
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Congratulations — and no, I am not going to ask what happens next. Today the only thing that counts is that [detail] is behind you.
What to write in a retirement card
Retirement cards go wrong in two directions. The first is assuming relief: a lot of people stop at a moment they would not have chosen — health, a restructure, an age rule — and a card that celebrates their freedom lands badly on all three. The second is telling someone what their life is now for. Grandchildren, the garden, all that free time: it is written warmly and reads as a demotion to somebody who has been good at a job for twenty years. Looking backwards is the safer direction. Say what they changed about the place, and let them decide what comes after it.
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Congratulations on your retirement. What you are leaving behind is not the post — it is the way things get done here, and that part stays.
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[Number] years, and in not one of them did anybody have to clear up behind you. That does not go in a reference, which is why it is going in here.
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This was not your plan, and we both know it. Everything a card like this normally says still applies to the [number] years before it — more of it than fits on the page.
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You did not choose the timing. You did choose how the last [number] years went, and people here will still be talking about those long after the paperwork is filed.
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Best wishes on your retirement. [Detail] would not exist in this form without you, and nobody here has failed to notice it.
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In my first year you taught me something I have passed on every year since: [detail]. Retiring does not change that.
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Everyone says the first Monday is the strange one. Ring me if it is — the number has not changed.
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Congratulations on your retirement. What you do with it is entirely your business. That you have earned it is not up for discussion.
New job congratulations
A new job is not automatically a step up, and it is not always a happy exit. People move because they were restructured out, because a manager finally became unbearable, or because the money did not stretch — and a card that assumes triumph can land on any of those. The safe congratulation is on the decision, not on the promotion you have inferred. If you know the place they are going to, say something concrete about what they will be walking into; if you do not, say something concrete about what they are taking with them.
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Congratulations on the new job. [Number] rounds of interviews to get there, and from outside you never once made it look like work.
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Congratulations. You waited for the right one instead of taking the first one, which is harder than it sounds and rarer than it ought to be.
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You did not go looking for this move and you have landed it anyway. Congratulations on the job, and on the weeks before it that your CV will never show.
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Congratulations on the new role. They are getting something nobody else does the way you do: [detail]. It will take them about a month to notice.
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Congratulations on the new appointment. One thing from working with you has stayed with me: [detail]. I assume it will not take them long to notice it either.
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I am glad for you and I think it is entirely unfair that you are going. Both are true. Good luck with [date], and with the first day after it.
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Changing field at [age] is not a crisis, it is a calculation somebody actually finished. That is the harder way to do it. Congratulations.
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Congratulations! That is all for today, because your phone is not going quiet any time soon. The long message comes in four weeks, when everyone else has stopped asking.
Congratulations on a promotion
A promotion is the congratulation most often written by somebody who applied for the same job, and the person who got it usually knows exactly who that is. If it is you, send it anyway and send it early: one short sentence with no qualifier in it costs you nothing on day one and is remembered for years. The damage is done by the qualifier — “well deserved, obviously” or “they finally noticed” reads as a scorecard. The other thing worth avoiding is congratulating the title. Nobody wanted the title; they wanted the work, or the money, or the say.
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We both applied, and I mean this anyway: congratulations. I would have decided it the same way.
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Congratulations. Not much changes for the rest of us; what changes for you is [detail], which is exactly the thing you said you wanted.
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A first management job is less a promotion than a change of profession. Congratulations — and call me the first time you have to tell somebody something you do not agree with either.
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Congratulations on your new position. Nobody here was surprised by the decision, which is the best thing that can be said about an appointment.
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Congratulations, and thank you for taking it. Nobody else would have arrived already knowing how this place actually works.
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You have been doing this job for [number] years. As of today the title is on the door as well. Congratulations.
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Congratulations on the promotion. I saw what [detail] cost you at the time, and I am glad it turned out to have been worth it.
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Deserved. Full stop. Congratulations.
Short congratulations for a card
With congratulations the short version is rarely a compromise. It is usually the correct one, because it goes out on the day — which is most of what makes a congratulation work. Wait until you have time to write something better and you will be sending it three weeks later, into a week where nobody is talking about it any more. Two lines on the day beat ten next month. The second reason is competition. Yours is arriving alongside twenty others that all say the same thing, and one concrete word — a number, a place, something you both remember from two years ago — is what makes it visible. The rest is decoration. Brevity has one limit. Where the occasion is not one the person is straightforwardly pleased about — a retirement at the wrong moment, a move they did not choose — the short version still has to name what it is congratulating. Two unanchored lines read as boilerplate exactly where that does the most damage.
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Congratulations. I saw the years that went into this one, so I know what is behind it.
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Congratulations — and specifically on this: [detail].
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All the best for the next part. You got through the last one properly.
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Congratulations. I am genuinely pleased for you, and I wish you every success with what comes next.
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I am proud of you, [Name], and I do not write that often. Congratulations.
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Short, because today is not a day for reading: congratulations. You have earned every word being said about you right now.
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You built this. Nobody handed it to you. Congratulations.
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Congratulations! I will ask again next month how it is actually going.
Formal and professional congratulations
A congratulation to a client or a contact arrives under suspicion, because it is the most-used pretext for a sales approach and everybody on the receiving end knows it. So the note is judged not on its warmth but on what follows it — which should be nothing. No offer, no suggested call, no attachment. The second thing that matters is how you know. Anything in a press release or on a public profile is fair to have noticed; anything told to you in confidence, or announced only inside the company, does not belong in a card going outside it. And a congratulation arriving three months late mostly tells the recipient which feed you saw it on.
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Congratulations on [number] years with the company. A fair amount of what exists here has your fingerprints on it, and everyone who has been around a while knows that.
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Congratulations on the award. The prize is the smaller part of it — the work behind it, which almost nobody saw, is the part worth congratulating.
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Best wishes for the opening. Going out on your own is a decision that is easy to admire from outside and considerably harder to copy.
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Congratulations on passing. Preparing for that on top of a full working week is an achievement on its own.
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Congratulations on the new office. I still remember the conversation where it was an idea that nobody but you believed in.
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Congratulations on the new post. This note is explicitly not a pitch — get in touch when things have settled at your end.
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Congratulations on taking over. It is not an easy succession to step into, and there are very few people I would back to do it.
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Congratulations from the whole team. What pleased us most was that you told us before you told anybody else.
Congratulate the person, not the milestone
Everybody gets the same twenty messages on the day, and they are interchangeable: congratulations, so happy for you, amazing news. None of them are wrong and none of them are remembered, because they respond to the announcement rather than to the person who made it.
The version that lands names what it took. "I know how long you were at this" or "I saw what that year cost you" tells someone you were paying attention before the good news existed — which is the part that makes a message feel personal rather than polite.
The three things to leave out
- Yourself. "So jealous!" and "when is it my turn?" are meant warmly and land as a small tax. The moment belongs to them; there will be others for you.
- The next question. "When's the wedding?", "are you trying for a second?", "what's the salary?" — a milestone is not an invitation to interview someone about the milestone after it.
- Qualified praise. "Finally!" and "about time" are affectionate in speech and read as criticism in text, because tone does not survive the trip.
Fast beats polished
A two-line message on the day is worth more than a beautifully composed one three weeks later, and the reason is simple: on the day they are still checking their phone about it. Later, the news has settled and your message arrives into an ordinary Tuesday.
So do not save it for when you have time to write something good. Send the short version now, and if you want to say more, say more later — which brings us to the actually valuable move.
The second message is the one people remember
Everyone congratulates on announcement day. Almost nobody comes back four weeks later to ask how the first month in the job actually went, whether the baby is sleeping, how the new place feels now that the boxes are gone.
That second message costs nothing and is disproportionately memorable, precisely because the wave has passed and you are the only person still holding the thread. It also arrives at the point where the reality has set in and the good news has become complicated — which is usually when someone most wants to talk about it and least expects to be asked.
It is also purely a memory problem. If you want to be the person who sends the second message, you do not need better intentions, you need a note somewhere. That is what Endearist is being built to do — locally on your own device, no account, no feed. In the meantime the birthday message generator and the thank-you note generator cover the neighbouring occasions, and the reconnect message generator handles the case where the good news arrived from someone you have not spoken to in a year.
How this test was built
This drafts a congratulations message calibrated to how close you are and what the occasion actually is. Worth knowing how this works, because most tools in this category work differently: the wording is assembled from templates we wrote, running entirely in your browser. There is no AI model and no server call, so nothing you type is sent anywhere, logged, or used for training. The trade-off is honest — you get a solid draft rather than something that reads as if it knew the person. Edit it before you send it; the details you add are what make it land.
Frequently asked questions
- What should I write in a congratulations message?
- Congratulate the person, not the milestone. Everyone sends the same twenty interchangeable messages on the day — congratulations, so happy for you, amazing news — because they respond to the announcement. The version that lands names what it took: "I know how long you were at this" tells someone you were paying attention before the good news existed.
- What should I leave out of a congratulations message?
- Three things. Yourself — "so jealous, when is it my turn" is meant warmly and lands as a small tax on their moment. The next question — "when's the wedding", "what's the salary" — a milestone is not an invitation to interview someone about it. And qualified praise: "finally" and "about time" are affectionate in speech and read as criticism in text.
- Is a quick message better than a well-crafted one?
- Yes, on the day. A two-line message that arrives within the hour beats a considered paragraph three days later, because congratulations are partly about timing — being among the people who reacted immediately is itself the signal. Save the crafted version for the second message, which is the one almost nobody sends.
- When should I send the second message?
- About four weeks later, when the announcement traffic has stopped and the reality has started. "How is it actually going?" a month after the new job or the baby is remembered far longer than anything sent on the day, precisely because everyone else has moved on. The generator produces three drafts across nine occasions, free and with no signup.